On Passion

You have to take a stand if the music is too loud for you to take. Facing the music is tough sometimes you may run but that’s not guts and what’s guts is to take that stand and face it, for at least you know you can face it, at least you can say you faced it, at least all things being the way they are - ain't not that great or good, so what the hell- better face it and die a strong one with passion rather than a weakling who ran away. Sometimes you may but I'd prefer all times you stay and face it.

Passion is embarking on something that’s difficult, that’s the reason why it’s called passion because it involves all your senses it takes you out of the delirium of life and place you on a pedestal were you would feel that the Damocles sword is hanging over you. Its inert, its within and it unwinds and brings forth an energy that’s unforeseen and that’s the reason you feel you have two choices either to run or to stay, and its due to the energy that it unwinds from within sometimes you feel weak and from deep inside each of us, a pressure seems to build which does not let go and we fear failure which is again an emotion that we term as Satan : when it manifests itself into something other than the defined basic morals and values  and the winners term as 'the losers’ or as people who could not take it &c.. and we run and we hide forgetting were we began - losing the energy that catapulted us to this level.

At this stage we feel the comfort level of having lost all that energy and it makes us sullen from within withdrawing away into nothingness - the state which is most pleasant, as we are not answerable to anything and anybody- except ourselves, but that phase it is quite easy because the questions that demand attention gets muffled by the calm breathing patterns that ensues in the outer core. But this hangs on our neck for forever and we feel helpless as days move into months and months into years and we loose ourselves to the world of least inertia.

Now the choice is ours again as always, which is better - the inertia-less existence were we do what natural circumstances pushed us to do and loose our own self to the withering masses, or the boundless freedom of seeking what we intend to do with ourselves and enjoying the freedom of failure, of trial and error, of judgment, and at last of eternal peace and success, Amen.

Passion is within all of us we have to keep disturbing it all the time and it would challenge us with multitudes of corners which are unappealing to the senses but we got to try to love those corners that’s all life is, simple...I guess that’s what makes the world such a beautiful as well as pathetic place at the same time. It's because of people with passion. All of us who go about their business in a manner which affects other's lives in a good or bad way have ardor. That’s where I appreciate some of the movies that Hollywood comes up with. I've never been exposed much to movies from other cultures except may be Indian, Italian, some Akira Kurasowa from Japan, some French and a lot of Malayalam and Bengali. But almost all movies, which affect us in some manner, are really based on passion. That’s the base pattern. The movie's character has passion - we love it, the movie's story-line has passion - we love it. In fact, everything we do, we say, we enact on, we react on, we conjure up in our mind; all of it is based on the the fervor we have in our innards. That’s why we tend to do it and then redo it again and again until we achieve some semblance of having reached a crossroad which looks more welcoming.

A lot of my conversations with friends, family, acquaintances or strangers are instances of listening to anecdotes and yarns from their past. And they keep repeating these tales or reaching the very same stories again and again and each time they narrate its always mentioned in a different manner trying to make it more attractive than the previous time, but at the end of the day we do get bored of it because we know its the same story. But look deeper and you would find that that’s the thing they had passion for. In fact that is the one thing, if followed religiously with extreme vigor, without worrying about money, society, family, circumstances and all those things that stop us, the person would have achieved heights hitherto untouched and the happiness that accompanies such simple passions is beyond a lot that we tend to experience.

They keep repeating these stories because the intensity of the passion that they tasted and the absolute exaltation they got familiar with during those few days that they did those things. They remember every tiny detail so picturesquely, precisely and their eyes widen and the lips move faster, and they want for us to respond similarly, they are on a high; a raise that even the best psychedelic drug cannot deliver. During those few days of their monotonous existence they had forgotten almost every other thing of this world. Nothing mattered then and when they are telling you the story nothing else matters to them but to seek the very same ecstasy and enthusiasm and share it with others.

A friend of mine went for a two week mountaineering program. She has told me that story at least 50 times. In myriad ways with multitude of emotions and it was almost a lesson for me on understanding human depth and sensations. She would talk about the difficulties of terrains, the beauty that awaited at the end of the road, the small hassles of morning chores in the open mountains, a majestic horse that suddenly came out of nowhere in a misty morning, unfurling its heavy brown mane between the flow of the fog, the haze lifting itself for the regal animal. I could see it and I could visualize everything she spoke of. I had felt a tug in my heart, a heavy brimming within me: it was not sadness in the fact that she is corporate honcho who busies herself in the everyday muddle but because of the force of the sentiment she was sharing I was moved at the exhilaration that she was infecting. The achievement of reaching the top, her team, the teamwork they enjoyed, the camaraderie with the instructor, the stories of small issues and small delights : all coming together to form a brilliant anecdote of  extreme passion. I reckon she never had anything as exciting as that ever in here life. Many a thing may have passed her by were she was happy and thrilled: a promotion, marriage, kids, the dream job, an awesome salary &c but nothing compares to that particular elation.

There are stories that would make one weep, and there are stories of brilliant souls that took the jump and came out smiling; which by the way, is always.

That’s what passion is about. Its about wherewithal freedom in your life.. When one has passion one does not have to really think about thinking out of the box or looking beyond to come up with something extraordinary. All those philosophical gaga goes for a toss as these are natural ingredients which are within us and permeates itself outwards when the nature of things you do are obsession and zeal bound. The deep rooted human need to do something special, to show that we are important and that we are to mean something with our birth is extreme and the outward expressions of those primary requirements seep out only when you follow your deep endemic purpose. All the self-help books in the world would have lost their relevance and value if we found what we wanted to do and followed it without any fears, inhibitions or hangovers that make us chained to the paradigm of safe existence.

I would like to quote one of favorite authors Mr. Charles Bukowski here "We are all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing."

Of images

Everyday our eyes see, watch, contemplate, ignore and memorize images that keep moving around us. The one's we memorize sometimes stays with us forever, sometimes they leave us as we speak about them or place them out in words which makes our expressions more imaginative. This I speak of our everyday lives. But when we move around and we are on the road there are images and pictures that capture our heart as well as our minds in a demeanor that we rarely fail to fathom. They hit us hard, now, when I say hard, the emotion could be anything - it could be harsh, it could be soothing, it could be elevating, enlightening blah blah blah.                    

 These dour and sometimes picturesque details when captured through the lens stay on for posterity. And if the story and the hardship behind picturing them are presented in a manner where the best possible adjectives are avoided so as to present the eye a small background score and let the eye that beholds contemplate, judge, rationalize and assimilate : much better. And when the stories are told to others and when the others would want to regale in the same expose and enjoy the fruits of their imagination then the success within those frames become immortal. A name gets attached and a million more of these others, for years to come, would like to sleep or get up and watch these endearing images grow within them for the questions they may have, for the thoughts they may render and for the serenity they may provide.
 What we have here in this life is a series of images with a small detail about them and the rest is for you to enjoy, unravel and marvel and take off to where your imagination would carry your thoughts. 

The colors, the detail and the vivid imagery of our wonderful earth whether it's in the most beautiful landscapes or the smoky, smoggy terrains, the dourness of everyday life or the pathos in the dirt that we accumulate and keep hiding under the carpet of dust and sand, the sadness of our wisdom in things which we ourselves created but we never took care of, the accumulation of our sins or the ignorant washing of the same, the majestic idealism of the structures that make us feel grand about ourselves and all of it. 

Probably we tried to capture all of this within a small-calculated frame and tried to portray all things that have carried a deja vu within us since childhood and still do and will always do. These are images, which every one of us has seen and probably thought of too, but we haven’t thought enough to have bought it across to ourselves. We are so bound within the idiosyncrasies and monotony of everyday existence that we have forgotten that particular area in our brain where we have kept all these small but extraordinary details. You may look into something and find that somewhere within you a door opened and the floodgates slammed out and heralded for you the details of all that you might have forgotten to look back upon. Isn't that what an image does?
 All of us sometimes in the rush forget where we come from, what we have seen, what we have captured and what we have gone through. It’s important to revisit the times that we might have had if... And it’s also the time now that we do not forget that past is like a history book that teaches, and morals and values are contemplative thoughts that we garner due to our past, we are what we are due to our past and the future is but an amalgamation of all that’s done and all that we are doing, to a place unknown but way better off if we haven’t forgotten the exotic imagery and ecstasy of being alive within the frames that we lived in.
 So, grab a cozy blanket and a cup of hot chocolate, prop up your feet, and enjoy a perfect weekend afternoon, within your confines and watch, as your imagination takes a ride...

On Pornography and cuckoos

Pornography, articles relating to it, movies or documentaries underlining its benefits as well as dangers associated with it, all of that stuff has some sort of curiosity build into it and that is a secondary reason on why it is an industry that thrives. The current streams over the internet and the virtual reality elements that seem to harness quite a bit of news is a new way but these wi-fi speeds and the sheer on your face sorta thing that seems to be all over could possibly be the beginning of the slide of an industry grows exponentially year by year. The primary reason being curiosity being satiated quite early and quite fast. The beauty of all things taboo or for that matter anything at all is the reach as well as the difficulty of achieving it. This thing is just too easy and the fun of it all is down the drain.

I remember my days when the first time, someone bought a few pages from 'The Hustler' and 'Playboy' to school. It was consternation the first time around, and then all the boys circled around a lot of oohs and aahs going on with the lady in the picture doing something absolutely incorrigible. First time around everything looks just too good. I remember that photograph and the lady to this date and I don't think I will ever forget. She was a willful companion on many a nights then. But the way this kid who bought it to school became a hero of epic proportions on that day was amazing. I wanted to get my own, but never could.

I remember the day when we found our first porn video cassettes from the local video store. It was so difficult to ask the guy in the first place, once done, it was all about when are we gonna watch it. It took us two days to figure a place we can. And when we did, misery, the damn visuals had grains all over. The worst part was when the female of the species who had been strutting and gaining our attention, wants to remove that small t-shirt of hers and show what we were waiting to see, the screen would go all awry, blinking and static and I dunno what all. Damn! damn! damn!

The beginning of attraction is opaque. The unseen is the most attractive. Then it floats over to translucent. That is the best stage. The adrenaline is going haywire and the uncontrollable urge takes over. Transparent is good just immediately after translucent but not at all times...the current issue is that. It begins with transparent and then there is only transparent. There is no curiosity being built.

Funnily, nowadays, the curiosity is for the tool that showcases this thing. First the laptop, oooh! a tool that's personal and does not involve watching with other people, but contrived to a room in the house or wherever. Then when it moved on to the phones, wallah! brilliant, too personal hold it in the hand and watch stuff. Now they are moving it closer to the eye, Virtual Reality. It is not the porn which attracting attention, it is the gadgets that are attracting attention. As soon as those VR glasses come around, the first thing to do is pop it in and watch Khalifa's or Amber's or whatever is available, they are all the same. That is it, end of story. After that it is purely awaiting the release of the worthy documentaries, the visit to the moon, Pyramids, Amazon etc.

Easy accessibility  is dangerous for all businesses and brands... 

On another level, a little story from a few days back. 

The amount of energy wasted on considering and dreaming of materials consisting of pornographic elegance is shocking. I read some statistics regarding the same in a local newspaper and it’s appalling. But another way of looking at it is that the photographs and the headlines for this particular newspaper article was quite evidently chosen with thought to attract attention and it was too much tilted towards the same genre it was talking about. May be journalism demands that or may be the sales department demands that. 

Whatever, the next day it seems they found that the sales for that edition were pretty high. It was a Monday, and it seems Monday blues hit newspaper circulations. So exactly on a Monday they came up with article - sales tactic. 

Whatever was written and the pictures attached all of it made interesting reading and a good raise in knowledge about some websites one can go to. Instead of the real intention which is to say that pornography is a bane of the society. My girl-friends read it and they came up with genuine queries about having visited a few of them and on how the others mentioned in the article stand. Well, needless to say as usual I gave them a download of information on all the porn websites that we all know of or visited of course, the information had to be female oriented and so it was. That gave way for a good conversation. It really does almost all the time I’ve ever broached the subject whether it’s with friends or quaint acquaintances and it has always turned out to be long, knowledgeable and boisterous conversations. 

In a different sense and manner, morally so to say, it is a very pathetic way of looking at women. But guess what, this is what men are all about most of them. They strut their stuff, blow their horn about imaginary sexual escapades, wade thru' life in the same demeanor forever and brag about it as old bastards sitting on creaky old park benches and laughing one's heart out and going back home and trying to figure what the hell all that brouhaha was about. 

Lastly, I knew a guy once who used to have ejaculatory benefits out of all these newspaper articles that come out once in a while. In almost any developed country his people would have taken him to a shrink, but in India it turned out the guy's big brothers, mom and daddy dearest were all hunky dory about it and not only that, they thought that their little brother was endowed with a fantastic libido. 

Libido my ass, the guy is cuckoo; that’s what I'd say another rape specimen being slowly trained into the drain of dirt.... 

Obituaries...and then Some Epitaphs

You have heard of obituaries everyone believes in them.
Except the Greeks of yore.

They did not believe in obituaries, they looked out for only question when a person dies or even when he is alive. ”Does he have passion?”

Ask yourself this question and that’s when they say that a human understands themselves and that’s when they find out what they are and why they are and how they can know what they shall be otherwise it’ll be just another life wandered about, made some money, spent some money, had sex, had food, created kids (of course, the cycle has to continue rolling), bought a house, drove a car, went touristy to a few places and thank you very very much;  moved on to the kingdom of god or wherever hell we move on to.... Period

Epitaphs are an interesting element. Love 'em

For me what I want is
                                  She smiled and then                    
                                         he loved and then he stopped existing
                                 he lived, they lived
                                        a cheer spread around them, at all times
                                  A visible passion clothed them
                                            Still clothed, passion floats here

There could be a million variations to this.. but for now this...

The best I have seen
                                 Les Gunther from Alamogordo, NM
                            Spat at a dog
                                     two slugs from .45
                                 no Les, no More

On Perception

Perception is a funny thing it gets me to do a load of stuff. It may sound ominous 'coz again perception has a bad rap. But it in turn allows you to be free to do things which in normal circumstances, rather, realistic circumstances does not allow you to do...

For example the doctor told me to keep my drinking to a bare minimum due to diabetes. I was like okay, sounds good. This was Monday, by the time Friday popped, okay became 'what the hell' one drink won't make a difference. I checked the internet for company. Found a few articles which supported my notion. Perception turns to small reality as you get a supporters along the way. But still the rational mind kept popping up, what are you doing, take care, these things will bust your can, take care. Okay accepted, I take a little step backwards. I say lets spend some money, buy some Kentucky brew, Jack Daniels, to be exact the cost here in India is a little over the top. That helps. I am drinking now and I am fine, the liquor succors me. I know why, my perception helps... the cost of the liquor assuages my rational that it wont affect my liver or my diabetes, because it is good liquor, The mind simply ignores the fact that wherever it is brewed in whatever way whiskey is whiskey, it is going to affect my liver and my diabetes. But mind over matter, my perception is extremely strong since the money takes over where rationale stops.

A lot of the stuff we do is such, this above is a very small example. We look for reasons, we look for support and in a billion odd population, hell, I am gonna get support at all times, because there sure shall be a nincompoop like me someplace everywhere who believes my kind of truth. That is what makes life so beautiful. Perception may have a bad rap and shall continue to do so till the end of time, but perception helps in faith, in hope, in mirth, goddamn it in every possible way. 

I heard a friend of mine has a colleague at his workplace, who always believes that he is right. Because of this he is continuously tearing apart the system, the attrition levels there are at a record high, nobody can stand this adamant soul. But the adamant soul is thinking well this is the way it is and it is right, let the world say otherwise, I know my shit, I know what I am doing. What a brilliant perception, dumb for the whole world, but for him the fool at his woeful brink he survives and thrives on this.....

Let us continue living..perceiving....

River Saraswati Popped Up Bah!!

It is amazing how media to gain eyeballs could go to any lengths and never consider the average readers intellect. The average reader reads only the headlines. But this number is very huge, I mean the average reader. The remaining bunch, the more curious ones pick up topics based on their level of curiosity and their level of need to gain knowledge or information. All three categories, as is the whole human race fall into the muck of perception before any article is read.

For example if I am reading Sartre on a plane and someone who has heard of Sartre thinks that I am intellectual, first up, then haranguing their head over whether I am first time reader...then they see my face and they go oh! nope should be intellectual. The other guy who does not know Sartre is thinking goddamn it even now we have people wasting their time reading such monstrosities, even the photograph on the cover is no good. But we all perceive. And we all insist on that perception to be right. You know what I am talking if you have sat in a crowded place and watched people with your friends. I mean I remember us betting on who is gonna go which way and to what restaurant and who is gonna kiss when or hold hands. You may thinking Voyeurs!!! For the sake of being nice, lets say observers....Anyway, when we get it right we love it, there is a feeling of having arrived. Even if it is nothing...

Now going back to the article, There was an article in today newspapers that they found a lot of water about 50 kilometers close to the Pakistan border in the desert of Thar, Rajasthan, India. Everybody is excited, for heavens sake, it is desert..so hell! ought to be excited....The article reads that people are digging for water and that at about 500 odd feet they find water. And it is not just a little bit of water, but gushing, strong, large quantity of water. The article headline states " Saraswati River Comes up in Thar".

The complete article then goes on to elaborate on how many people are finding water and how good it is and how scientific evidence suggests granite's of yore having water kept in them for centuries may have popped out..etc etc etc..and also that all people have denied that this has anything to do with the mystical river of Saraswati and that is a legend and still stays as one and that there is no river underneath all this buoyant talk.

If this above is the case then the question arises, why that headline in the first place. I understand you are media and you need eyeballs but.. the general population, the average Joe is set to get a few tongues wagging on this extraordinary discovery of his. There may be purists who may have read the article due to curiosity but with the perception of Saraswati someplace in his mind and after completing the article they may have cynically expressed their delight to their friends about their new found discovery because the hangover of why he read the article in the first place stays.....

Wooh! not to pinpoint that all things are bad and awful, the art of grabbing eyeballs is fantastic, but the art of marketing something wrong is going to go down in an awfully wrong manner. And the paying population remember is getting more and more ignorant even with the bombardment and proliferation of information and at the end somewhere when I am not even part of the stories someone is going to say "what the fuck happened"

Take care!!!

Exponentially Communicating Yet None of It

The dearth of communication in an over-communicated world is surprising. Or is it? I see people around who feel that they are communicating. Someone send me video of a R&B song recently on Whatsapp, And this person was sending me something after close to 8 - 9 months. I thought it was a mistake 'coz, personally for me, I forgot he existed. I send him back a thumbs-up emoji. And that's that. We communicated. I reckon we both felt that we did.

He did his part by sending in something totally out of the blue and he may have felt that I would enjoy the pleasurable company of the brilliant singers and the cacophony of the liberal dancing and in return when I acknowledged what he did with my emoji it came full circle in terms of the tenets of communication.

I do not speak to my partner or to my friends as much as we did before the invention of the Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Pinterest, Snapchat and the scores of others that are available as tools of communication.We do send emojis  to each other and there are quaint expressions over the phone, but it is purely need based and requirement oriented and nothing that is permeated purely for the sake of having a decent communication. There are a load of other people, who really are not in the play of relationship or even close to personal, and they seem to be more interactive and condescending when it comes to having a decent conversation. But again, who am I kidding, I mean, they are also the kinds that is purely need based. We talk for the need of achieving an end purpose.

Suddenly, I just realized while I am writing this that there is not a single soul that I speak to or who speak to me for any other purpose other than a reasonable end goal. That shows how pathetic I have become as a individual.

Isn't it important to just simply have a chat with no end purpose or no results. Isn't  it the most beautiful thing to be free in terms of the deed of communicating without any kind of orientation  to consider. I miss a friend, or two , big time. 'Coz, floodgates of memories just opened and the can is looking good. I mean those were the good ol' days where we would sit on corner stones, pubs, or wherever we can find a li'l space to park our asses and talk of all the things under the sun. It never used to be about weather or about the shit loads of crimes that went around. It used be about music, books, dance forms, chicks we dig, chicks we don't dig, philosophy, sociology, culture, religion and booze characteristics, disease, social evils, change, politics, rhetoric and yes of course who can forget movies and documentaries.

Quite a lot of stuff was not accessible easily, things never got to us before they were supposed to, cassettes and CD's had one song which we liked and the remaining were in another cassette or CD and we could not buy that easily as it costed more than we could afford with our weekly pocket money. The pocket money was for the tea, cigarettes, coffee, booze and dates, if any. But this accessibility thing has made life different. There is nothing wrong, I mean I could be doing all these things even now if my friends were free and we were of that age, may be.

But, some aspects of conversation has changed. I was sitting with a friend of mine, we had dated long time back, things did not work out then and we continued with our own journey's, We met, we were happy long lost friends meeting each other, catching up...the works. But all that brouhaha left in about 6-7 minutes as the notifications kept loading in. None of it was work. Starbucks Coffee could not bring in the necessary camaraderie for a chit chat of the old kinds. There was a good connect but those phones were wrecking it. She did talk in between, in fact, she notified me of all the notifications and also updated me of the recent WhatsApp joke that she received. Almost all of what we spoke was from someone else's updates of things that don't matter and philosophy that do not fit with us.

Everybody has to have someone whom they need to talk to. I have found mine quite recently and it is brilliant revisit as well as a great journey. I am enjoying every bit of it and may be so is the person because the conversation continues without any hindrances and a lot of spillages, which makes it special. Spillage means you care, means you thought, means you want to bring in the perspective even if the hour or the day has passed and you mean all of it. I know this shall also not last, as all mortal things that matter but it is here, it is now, it is transcending space and time and all of that bullshit that carries us forward and it is beautiful.

To each his own.... please keep talking,,, you will always find someone to listen and if they want to listen that means it is worth it all, it is worth the deed....So keep it going...